245
ITALY
of the custom house of Massowah, which show imports
for a vakie of 2 millions of dollars, and exports for
$600,000, approximately. The United States send to
the colony only petroleum, and cotton textiles, car-
ried in English bottoms, for a value of about §40,000,
and they export a small amount of hides. Commerce
by caravan with Etiiiopia increases continually; in
1906 it amounted to .31,200,000 for imports, and to
nearly $2,000,000 for exports. The commerce of the
country is in the hands of Greeks and of Banians, In-
dian merchants. Hair, musk, wax, medicinal plants,
and especially pearls and mother-of-pearl, are e.x-
ported. The imports of the Colony of Somalia for
190(5 amounted to .$720,000, and the exports to $546,-
000. The principal exports include animal products,
hair, ivory, and amber. The arrivals at the port of
Massowah numbered 146 steamships, and 1893 sailing
vessels,withanaggregate tonnage of 164,148; the clear-
ances were 147 steamers and 1874 sailing vessels, with
an aggregate tonnage of 204,814. In Eritrea there are
10 post offices, for both the postal and telegraph serv-
ices; there are 4 offices of the kind in Somalia. The
number of postal orders issued in the Colony of Eritrea
in 1904-1906 was 28,619, to the value of $3,650,000,
and 14,507 were cashed, for an aggregate sum of
$2,770,000. There were 2395 deposits in the postal
savings banks, amounting in all to $100,000, and
there were 1305 withdrawals to the amount of $70,000.
The number of telegrams sent was 15,697, and of those
received, 2610. The telegraph system of Eritrea con-
sists of (a) Massowah-Assab and the Assab-Perim
cables, which connect with the wires of the Eastern
Telegraph Company; (b) the land line of Massowah-
Asmara-Cheren-Saliderat, which at Kassala cormects
with the Sudano-Egyptian wires; (c) the Asmara-
Addis-Abeba line. The law of 14 July, 1907, author-
ized the expenses for the establishment of wireless
telegraph stations at Asmara, in the Colony of Eritrea,
and at Mogadiscio, Brava, Merka Giumbo, Bardera,
and Lugh, in Somalia. The first railroad line, the
Massowah-Saati, 16i miles long, was opened in 1887;
thereafter, the line was extended to Ghinda, and so
attained a length of 43 miles. In 1907 the Gliinda-
Asmara line, 31 miles long, was opened to traffic. The
colonial budget is approximately $2,000,000, both for
receipts and expenses; and the nation's African ex-
penses since 1882 have amounted to nearly $92,000,-
000, exclusive of provisions and materials to the army
and to the na\'y. The corps of colonial troops con-
sists of 126 officers and 4451 men, 193 horses, 521 small
mules, 147 mules, and 10 scouting camels. Each one
of the colonies is governetl by a civil governor, assisted
by residents, who are placed under his orders. The
chief centres of population in Eritrea are Massowah
(population, 10,000), situated upon an islet that is
connected with the mainland by an embankment,
Keren (population, 2000), and Asmara, the capital.
The chief places in Somalia are the ports of Brava,
Merka, Mogadiscio, Marshek, and Obbia. The ad-
ministration of justice is under colonial judges, and
is based upon Moslem jurisprudence (Cheriat), the
common native law (Teslur), and the different re-
ligious regulations and habits.
(2) Protectorates. — Under the protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy are (a) the territory of the Sultan of the Migiurtins, which extends along the coasts of the Gulf of .\den and of the Indian Ocean from Bender- Ziade (49° E. of Greenwich) to Cape Bovven in the Bay of Dar-es-Saleh (Convention of 7 .A.pril, 1SS9, and IS August, 1901); (b) the territory of Xogal, the head of which is Sayed ben Abdallah, called the Mullah; this territory extends from Cape Bovven to Cape Garad (Agreement of lUig, 5 March, 1905); (c) the territory of the Sultan of Obbia, which extends from Cape Garad to the northern boundary of the territory of Uarsceik, 2° 30' N. (Treaty of 8 February, 1889). The limits of the zone of influence in Somalia were estab-
lished by the Italo-British protocols of 24 March, 1891 ,
and 5 May, 1894. They first established the western
and the southern boundaries by a line which, from the
sea, follows the ircuii) of the Ciiuba River to the sixth de-
gree of northern latitude, and from there to the thirty-
fifth meridian K. of Greenwich, where it reaches the
Blue Nile. The second protocol established the boun-
dary by a fine from Gildessa towards the eighth degree
of >f. latitude, along the north-eastern frontier of the
territories of the Girri, Bertiri, and Rer .\li tribes; from
that point, the line follows latitude 8° N. to its inter-
section with parallel 48° E. of Greenwich, whence it
goes to the intersection of latitude 9° N. with the par-
allel of 49° E. of Greenwich, and thence on foUows that
meridian to the sea. Bender-Ziade, although situated
to the west of the forty-ninth meridian, is included
within the sphere of Italian influence.
By the agreement of 7 June, 1902, the Chinese Gov- ernment recognized the concession of Tien-tsin, in China, a small territory that is situated on the right of the Pei-ho River, which constitutes the southern boundary for nearly a mile; on the east this territory is conterminous with the Russian concession, and on the west with the Austrian concession, while the lands of the Imperial Chinese Railroad Company form its northern boundary; its area is nearly 18 sq. miles and it contains a village and some salt mines; its native inhabitants number about 17,000. The conces.sion is in charge of the consul, who is assisted by an admin- istrator.
For the history of Italy see the medieval annals, best col- lected in the montunental work of Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum. etc. (S00~1600) in 28 folio volumes (.Milan, 1725; new ed., small 8°, Citta di Castello, 1900); see also his valu- able Annali <V Italia — from the beginning of the Christian era to 1 749 — ( 1 2 vols., Milan, 1 744^9) ; Sigonius, Hist, de regno ItalicB, 670-1200: B.iLAN, Sloria d' Italia (2nd ed.. Modena. 1894); He- gel, Storia delta CO stituzione dei municipi iialiani (Milan, 1861); SiSMONDl, Hitt. des republiques italiennes du moyen-dge (Paris, 1817-18), non-Catholic and often prejudiced: Lanzani, I com- muni, da Carlomagno ad Henrico VII (Milan, 1880); Ficker, Forschungen zur Reichs- und Rectitsgeschichte Italiens (Innsbruck, 1894); Mann, History of the Popes in Itie Early Middle Ages (St. Louis, 1904 sqq.), and Pastor, History of the Popes since the Erul of the Middle Ages, tr. Antrobus (London and St. Louis, 1902 — ) ; VAN DuERM, Pouvoir temporel des Papes (Lille, 1890) ; Fertile, Storia del diritto italiano (Padua, 1887-88); Litta, Famiglie celebri italiane (Milan, 1815-69); Coppi, Le universita italiane nel medio evo (2nd ed.. Florence. 1880); Balzani, Le cronactie italiane nel medio evo, also in English transl., S. P. C. K.; ToNloLo, Le buone tradizioni delta storia d^ Italia (Lendinara, 1891); Ampere. L'Histoire d'ltalie et ses historiens in Rev. des Deux Monies, V, 1856, 45-81 . Histories of Italy should be read with caution, as writers are frequently moved by anti-papal or anti-Catholic prejudice or passion.
LuiGi Tacchi Venturi.
Italian Liter.vture. — Origins and Development. — The modern language of Italy is naturally derived from Latin, a continuation and development of the Latin actually spoken among the inhabitants of the peninsula after the downfall of the Roman Empire. It is still disputed how far this spoken Latin was identical with the classical literary language of Rome, the Latinus togatus, and how far it was a merely pop- ular tongue, the seniio ruslicus. Most probably it was a mixture of the two — the latter, owing to the changed social conditions, predominating. A small number of words derived from Greek are in part relics of the epoch of Byzantine domination, in part introduced later through the Crusades and through commerce; the Saracenic invasions have left traces in a very few .\rabic words, chiefly in Sicily; a cer- tain number of wonls have come indirectly from the Latin through French or Provencal; even the long centuries of Teutonic conquests and inroads caused only a comparatively slight influx of words of Ger- manic origin.
In the "De Vulgari Eloquentia" (i, 10-16), Dante speaks of the "many discordant varieties of the Italian vernacular", and rejects them all in favour of the " illustrious, cardinal, courtly, and curial ver- nacular in Italy", the standard and ideal national
